December, 1991.

DIARY

This was our second year living in Flushing Township. I remember this month pretty vividly, actually. It kicked off with the inaugural performance of the Flushing Junior High School Drama Club's production of The Wizard of Oz, and I played the wizard. This was my first time in a "serious" play, where I would have to memorize lines and appear onstage in front of an audience of some hundreds of friends and family. Moreover, I was in love with the space itself; the stage was a procenium at the back of the gym, and it was built with the money that Flushing's early jump made in the 1920s. Still, it had aged and was never scrupulously maintained, and now the space (both gym and stage) had the feel of a place where, say, basketball had been invented... and then the space was forgotten.

This bascially was the beginning of my obsession/interest with theater.

I was also really into the Gothic that year, since I had recently bought the Ravenloft Dungeons & Dragons setting, predicated on a world of gothic horror with such thinly veiled allusions as Modenheim's Monster and Count Strahd von Zarovich... though my favorite villain was the lich, Azalin. This purchase had just barely anticipated Nintendo's release of Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse, which is easily in the top 25 video games I've ever played. I rented the game sporadically throughout November but didn't actually beat it until December, and it was almost Christmas by the time I beat the game with Sypha Belnades. Imagine my surprise when... !

All this was over and through the backdrop of my family showing real discretion, visiting three tree farms before finally choosing a Christmas tree. The shadow that the tree made in our living room, and then the huge light when it had been decorated. I probably helped to decorate for awhile, then went to play some more Castlevania. Although I know that I visited with friends from time to time, for the most part I remember being with my family at my house and reading Fantasy books. On Christmas, my brother got the video game Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland but that was also the year that I discovered my mother's springerly cookies and Swedish meatballs. They had probably been around for years, but that was the year they finally caught me.

Where were you in December, 1991?

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